


therapy.

by asolitarygrape



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcoholism, Character Death, Child Abuse, F/M, Fantasy Sex, Grief, Identity Issues, Identity Swap, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mind Games, PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Tension, Simulated Sex, Therapy, civil war spoilers, discussion of alternate realities, mental manipulation, referenced AOU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 20:19:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6871999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asolitarygrape/pseuds/asolitarygrape
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*CIVIL WAR SPOILERS*</p><p>The nightmare was being who everyone already thinks you are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	therapy.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, CIVIL WAR SPOILERSSSSS

Wanda collapsed back against the wall. The news too much. On top of everything, _everything,_

They blamed her, as they rightly should. They believed she had caused _collateral damage_. They used words and euphemisms and made soft sounds as though they were sparing her feelings. As if taking the clinical approach would lessen the blow. Glances and nudges. Someone’s forearm gripped and pulled and whispers and growls out of sight. Like they forgot she was a fucking telepath. Like they forgot she was a fucking human. 

They called Hulk and Banner, Thor nuclear warheads.

They hadn’t put a name to her.

Many of them, all of them, had a heat signature. Some more violently so than others. Not necessarily literal heat, but an aura she couldn’t ignore. She knew when they were afraid of her. She knew it as a scent that never left. And talking down to her, using words to imply they were protecting her. She could smell it. She was not stupid. 

Each thought a staccato note in a long piece of music spanning her lifetime. You are different. You are dangerous. You are a mutant.

Until Wanda had said: No more mutants.

And now this alternate reality, this universe parallel and on top of hers. Where her brother had been another casualty to her refusal to embrace mutanthood. Where he had been a sweeter boy. Where gods came from the sky but dared to call it science. Where men made by science chose to be soldiers and throw their blood around enthusiastically.

Steve was not afraid of her, and this was bizarre. Steve, so much as Wanda could understand, feared nothing. Or everything. It was never clear, a constant pulse and straight face. It refused to bend or react. It operated on a level Wanda had not pried into. 

She could.

The visions she’d given them, she knew them all. She had the worst-case scenarios mapped. She didn’t think she understood his. 

She _could._

Stark feared everything, constantly, without pride. He didn’t attempt to hide himself from anything, just the expression of it. Smart mouth, dumb hands, punching instead of building. He was so much better at building.

Steve had walked out of the conference room and Wanda had barely blinked. It registered on an atomic level. Steve was the quietest and loudest of them all. 

Stark continued talking. The Secretary continued talking. Vis and Rhodey and them. Natasha was staring at Steve’s empty space as if she felt it too. The shift.

As they disbanded, the worried comments over not swaying the Captain began taking weight. Each member felt it differently. Natasha was the first to disappear. Wanda followed.

Natasha found him, quick and quiet, ducked into a stairwell. Wanda sneaked after, crouched on the stairs a floor above. She held her breath to be undetected. Steve was not speaking, only radiating. Lick of red coming off of him that only Wanda would have been able to see. Natasha offered him a thousand things, tried to pry into a layer Wanda hadn’t felt safe peeling back.

Shoulders down, defeat lining her mouth like disappointed commas, Natasha stepped away. And Wanda craned her neck to the side, watching.

Steve followed begrudgingly. Red lined eyes but still steady pulse, straight face. There was a slowness, or maybe just a lack of speed, to his movements. Natasha stepped into a side room, speaking about ‘arrangements’. 

Steve didn’t follow. Head against the door jamb, face set. 

Wanda sucked in her cheek. 

Tall man, she thought. Broad and big and sweet, but a heart like an elastic sheet. She could practically see the hands pushing through him. And he didn't break, only stretched and bended. Eventually the elastic would wear out, his heart would be a mess of flapping valves that couldn't hold blood in or out and failed.

Wanda assured herself that the real Natasha was not going to step out of the room any time soon.

She stepped slinkily out. Natasha is slinky, Wanda thought. Without a word Natasha wrapped her arms around his neck. Her face tucked against his throat, breaths hot against the notch between his clavicles. And she was sweet, small puffs of sad breaths and arms around him, fingers digging at the nape of his neck. 

“It’s going to be okay,” She told him.

She refused to release, held him tighter when they were alone. He exhaled hard at the body sliding down his. At her hands and her insistence. 

"I'm sorry," she whispered and planted kisses on his throat. 

Steve pushed her back, a feeling he fought against tightening across his belly. " _Nat,_ "

Her hands didn't wander again. They found grooves in his shirt and skin and dug themselves in. She tucked her head under his chin with a soft sound of approval. So this was all they were to each other, Wanda noted.

She gulped at her own intrusion, thinking of the real Natasha still in the room. Only a wall separated a very unpleasant scene from happening. Wanda grunted, “Sorry, sorry. You just,”

She thought about the part she was playing and decided that being Natasha Romanov was the least of her concerns. “You look like you need a distraction.”

Steve huffed, barely a mock of a laugh. He was looking aside and strong bones and strong muscles and strong skin stretched over tendons and twitches and breathing. Wanda quickly looked away. This is not how Romanov looks at him.

“Come on,” Wanda nudged her head away from the door opening. Away from where the real Natasha could walk out and implode the scene. 

“Where?” Steve grunted. Words were barely words, something burning him around the edges, paper curling and smoking.

“Somewhere distracting,” She scoffed.

It landed right. Briefest smile.

They trudged back to the dormitories, business-like. Steve receded firmly behind stiff muscles and bones. There was too much inside of him for that point of matter to contain. And Wanda kept glancing nervously at him for cues, for signs of breaking, and found none. Steady pulse, straight face. And war. Endless, eternal war behind his eyes.

He didn’t banish her at the door. Left it hanging open. Wanda worried about the charade going too far, uncertain how long she could pass in Romanov’s skin. She wasn’t certain it was an invitation, wasn’t certain how long Romanov would have lingered.

Luckily, or unluckily, or some other variant of fortune, Steve wasn’t paying her any attention. He slipped away into his quarters like he slipped inside of bones and muscle and hid behind pillars of veins and tendons.

Wanda padded in after him, closing the door. Searching around the dimness, the layers of grey: grey walls, wood furniture, everything dull, everything steady; Wanda considered. He used to be color blind. He used to be half deaf. Shouldn’t he want to surround himself with color and noise and vibrancy? 

Cheap furniture, cramped quarters, grey and grey and grey and grey

Steve’s vision had been vibrancy and color and noise. Dancing and laughing and what everyone would assume he should want.

Watch an old serial, listen to the radio show. Captain America saves damsels, fights Nazis, laughs loud.

Steve Rogers is color blind and half deaf.

Wanda receded in her skin. Or, in Natasha’s skin, if you prefer.

The argument in the conference room had been about swaying the Captain. When Stark spoke, he spoke to the Captain. 

“None of them realize,” Wanda ventured in a wise, self assured, Natasha-Romanov-voice. “They’re trying to convince the wrong person.”

Steve chuckled somewhere in a bathroom or closet or wherever he’d receded to. Wanda found him face down on his bed.

She sat on the edge. She judged the situation and rubbed small circles into his shoulder. Natasha was prettier when she stuck her chin out than Wanda was, Wanda thought. Natasha could get away with petting Steve Rogers.

“Peggy would’ve,” Steve grumbled. He left it there. Left it hanging. His heart exposed enough when it was under bone and muscle and skin. He didn’t want any further prying.

“Peggy wouldn’t have signed,” Wanda concluded. She tutted. She considered Natasha’s point of view. “Peggy was a spy, though, Steve. She would have known she had to work from the inside. She _did_. She dealt with everything that got thrown at her to stay close to the game.”

“Peggy would’ve yelled at me for walking out,” Steve corrected.

Wanda froze. She resumed petting at him. Because Natasha wouldn’t have frozen for long.

“She would have said dying was a stupid excuse.” Steve huffed. He rolled onto his side and Wanda took the initiative to lay next to him. To huddle close to him. To let herself be _protected_ because that made Steve feel useful. Feel safe. Feel normal.

The captain had been too good to her, better than she deserved. He was always doting, always making apologies and taking responsibility. Whenever she was looked at wrongly, he was the first to speak. It felt too easy, and too difficult, letting him wrap an arm around her. They both glared in respective directions.

Just because it’s the path of least resistance doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Someone had said that. Had Natasha said that? Was Natasha going to say that? Wanda suddenly couldn’t remember. She curled tighter into Steve, ideas floating in about mutants and there being no more of them.

She forced out the idea of other realities. She was getting better at it. She wouldn’t be better at it forever. Someday she would snap. Someday she would alter reality one time too many. She was elastic, too.

But he was there. Steady pulse, straight face. Even in grief.

“You’re right, Peggy would have signed it.” He afforded. Wanda nearly lifted her head but kept it where it was. Tucked close to skin that she wouldn’t be able to touch wearing her own face. “But,” Steve swallowed. She heard it. She felt it. It moved through him like a hand reaching through his ribs. Trying to still that heart, shake whatever steadiness his bones gave.

And then it flooded him. And Wanda listened quietly, under each solid _th-thump, th-thump, th-thump_ : James Buchanan Barnes, Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier. Interchangeable titles for a concept that made Steve rage. That burned too bright not to fall into. To be lost in. That across multiple realities was always constant. Always breathing.

To Steve's surprise, Bucky lowered himself onto the bed beside them. Touching Natasha's hair gingerly he said, "You listening to his heart?"

Steve nearly pulled away but Natasha cemented herself tighter against him, warming his side. He felt her thigh brush over his. The heat between her legs suddenly open against him.

"I get it," Bucky tucked back her hair, petted her. "It's always a little fast, he's always so in his head, but it's steady. It's not going anywhere."

"He doesn't let just anyone close to his heart," Bucky whispered. His fingers had trailed from Natasha's hair onto Steve.

Natasha whispered back, "You make his heart beat fast."

"Do I?" Bucky's voice was honey.

"Off," Steve snapped. 

"You'd give it to me, wouldn't you?" Bucky's fingers moved along his sternum and Steve twisted away. Natasha melted into the scenery. 

"Get off, Wanda!" Steve snarled. "Get out of his skin right fucking now!"

Wanda sucked at Steve's neck. It sounded like discovery: " _Christ,_ you want this.”

"This is just a goddamn illusion." Steve growled at his body. It wasn't listening. It was canting up at her/him. 

Wanda murmured. "You're screaming for him. I can’t—I can’t get it out of my head."

It was Bucky's face. It was dark features and light eyes like storms and looking at him in every gasp, every stolen moment, every desperate plea they'd ever exchanged. 

"Let me do this for you," Bucky asked. Wanda begged, "Please, Steve."

"It's not real." Steve couldn't look away. He was caught in Bucky's eyes, in his hands on his chest, in the look of rejection and fear. That wasn't Bucky. 

That was the blank slate Bucky had been forced to be.

Bucky looked tortured. Wanda said, "Oh _Jesus_."

She pulled off of him and sat the edge of the bed.

They both were quiet and fixed elsewhere on points much farther than the room. Panting and shaking and bitter.

"I'm sorry," she croaked after several minutes. She couldn’t help but keep clawing at her chest. At the feeling she’d absorbed off of him. At his desperation. "I was--I didn't think of it like that. I'm sorry. I,"

"You don't," but he was radiating his own anger and stopped himself. 

"I never," she bleated and covered her face. "Goddamn it, I'm sorry."

"It's," Steve said after a beat. He didn't say 'okay'. It wasn't okay. He sat up, whole body tense, ripped, stretched like he'd been covered with sun burns.

"Everyone's afraid of me. They should be. I just, I wasn't thinking! I'm sorry. I can't believe I just, Oh god," she radiated heat, practically turning the room red with anxiety. But the feeling wouldn’t leave, the want in him that had grabbed onto her soul. It parked itself angrily in her head. It shouted: _GIVE HIM BACK._

Then, a beat, “Your vision. It was bright and loud and you got to be with Peggy. Man who can’t live without war. A man who sees war in everything. That’s why it didn’t bother you: you’ve already heard it a million times. The nightmare was being who everyone already thinks you are.”

Wanda sucked in her jaw, grunted, “I’m sorry for making another assumption about you. I’m sorry I disregarded who you are. I’ll leave. I’ll leave the compound. I’ll--”

“Stay,” Steve exhaled. He cracked his knuckles and looked at the floor between his feet. Hunched over the side of the bed like a scolded child. He grumbled, “I knew it was you, I knew what you were doing, I just---not him.”

Wanda nodded.

Steve buried his face in his hands.

She watched him. Not steady, not straight faced, not Captain America. 

Wanda stepped off of the bed and sat on the floor in his line of sight. She hummed, “You knew it was me?” Steve gave her a smug look. She blushed. “Sorry, had to ask. I thought I was doing okay being Romanov.”

“You think your super powers are ill defined?” Steve scoffed. “I have a photographic memory; I can literally forget nothing. My cells regenerate so quickly I don’t experience fatigue, can’t get drunk, heal faster than anything else alive, and _incidentally_ , I can’t be mind controlled.”

“Huh,” Wanda nodded. “You think you’d be smarter.”

Steve nearly glared, but there was something to her smirk. He added, haughtily, “Master strategist and polygot.”

“So what am I, just a light show to you?” Wanda tried to force all the kindness in the world into her smile. “Pretty red swirls?”

“ _I will always know you,_ ” Steve’s voice had weight that stuck into Wanda’s chest. “In heaven or hell.”

It wasn’t steady, or straight faced. 

“You know that thing Stark has been selling, the therapy room?” Wanda sucked in her cheek.

“SPEW or something stupid like that?” Steve quirked an eyebrow.

“I know a cheaper version,” Wanda smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> This is a [tumblr](http://asolitarygrape.tumblr.com/), come say hi ^^


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